The Tristan Chord by Glenn Skwerer review – Hitler’s path to evil

Adolf Hitler, far left, with fellow soldiers during the first world war.
Photograph: Getty

Fictional presentations of Hitler offer a uniquely difficult dilemma for an author. Err on the side of caricature, and one is left with the one-dimensional ranting demagogue of popular imagination. Humanise him too much, and you run the risk of creating a sympathetic martyr: a gift for the far right and neo-Nazis. There is also the chance of a descent into banality, as seen in Menno Meyjes’s otherwise perceptive 2002 film Max, where an account of the young Führer’s career as an artist is rendered occasionally ridiculous by such lines as “Come on, Hitler, I’ll buy you a lemonade.”

It is to debut novelist Glenn Skwerer’s credit that such moments are largely avoided in his intelligent and engrossing account of Hitler’s youth in early 20th-century Austria. It is here that Eugen Reczek, an undistinguished young man with vague musical ambitions, falls into the path of the charismatic yet disturbing 16-year-old Adolf, of whom it is said, by his mother: “he is difficult and strange and he lives in his head”. Reczek is both confused and beguiled by this intense young man, who adores the operas of Wagner with a fierce passion, but also has half-formed ideas about nationalism and pride. When Hitler heads to Vienna in 1908 to pursue his artistic dreams, Reczek follows, but soon finds his friend taking more interest in racial purity and his dream of a new Germany than painting. The rest is history.

The so-called “Tristan chord”, which first appears in the prelude to Act I of Tristan und Isolde, is said to create “a powerful feeling of brooding anticipation, of suspense, of gathering doom”. Skwerer’s book, which is based on August Kubizek’s memoir The Young Hitler I Knew, is strong on creating both anticipation and a sense of doom. In fictionalised form, his antagonist has something of the dramatic charge of Milton’s Satan or Iago, proposing the most heinous ideas with the appearance of reason. Yet what is so striking about Skwerer’s conception of Hitler is how mundane he is. For much of the book, there seems little to distinguish him from his father Alois, a blowhard given to spouting opinions about political ideas that he barely understands. Meanwhile, as Reczek negotiates his own path to a musical career, occasional flash-forwards to the post-second world war era, as he meekly submits to American incarceration, reveal how much his friendship has cost him.

The strongest part of the book is the final section, which depicts a series of meetings between Reczek and Hitler at Bayreuth and Linz in 1938. After a potted summary of the events that saw the rise of “Adolf”, as Reczek calls him, the man has become less a human being and more a symbol of rebirth and the revitalisation of his country. It is here that Skwerer creates the greatest contrast between Reczek’s conception of his relationship with Hitler and that which history has bestowed upon it.

Yet hindsight offers a false sense of certainty. In an author’s note, Skwerer points out that while it would be reassuring to imagine the adolescent Hitler as a “younger version of the adult monster… a member of a different species… it would not be true. He does not belong to another species. He belongs to our species.” At a time when antisemitism and intolerance seem once again to be on the rise, The Tristan Chord offers a sobering reminder that evil comes in many guises, and sometimes can be as banal as a humourless 16-year-old loner who venerates music more than humanity.

• The Tristan Chord by Glenn Skwerer is published by Unbound (£16.99). To order a copy for £14.44 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99